Page 9 of Making the Save
“Well, you were a little shaken after that asshole grabbed your ass so Richie gave you his flask.”
“Right,” I whispered. “Tequila.”
“And you’re a tiny thing,” he said, the tone of his voice implying it wasn’t an insult. Quite the opposite. My hungover-self liked that. So much.
I was used to being admired for my looks. Being sexualized by grown ass adult men when you’re a teenage girl growing up in the business gives you a real weird relationship with your body.
But the way he admired me was different. I didn’t know how, it just was.
“Did we win the race?”
“Of course, honey. I don’t lose.”
“But you lost the game for the trophy.”
“Thatyou remember?” he asked with a grumble.
The way he said honey brought out a bunch more memories. “We went out for dinner. Just…”
“The two of us. Yeah.”
There’d been the hushed booth and a really nice bottle of wine. We were sunburned and starving and I ate a whole steak. Plus dessert. And we’d laughed. So much. So much…
He nodded like he was remembering the same thing.
“I saved your life,” I said.
“Let’s not get carried away. Steak went down the wrong pipe and you gave me a thump on the back.”
“Nuh, uh. I totally Heimliched you.”
“Hardly. I do the saving, honey.”
I laughed, deep in my belly like I had all last night. My abs hurt like I’d done a core workout.
“Hey,” he said. “No offense?”
“I’m already offended.”
“I think something died in your mouth.”
I gasped. “That is no way to talk to the woman who saved your life.”
I pushed the sheets away from our heads but we didn’t move. We lay facing each other in the middle of the king size bed. In my suite, thank God. I didn’t need to do any walk of shame back to my hotel.
He reached towards me again and smoothed down my hair, which had probably been standing up like I’d been electrocuted.
“What else do you remember?” he asked, and something about the sunlight coming in through the window, hitting the skin of his shoulder, reminded me of something else.
“We went swimming.”
He nodded.
After golfing, but before dinner, we met at the hotel pool with the swim up bar. He didn’t ogle my body in my bikini, and I tried to keep my eyes off him wearing nothing but his swim trunks.
It hadn’t been easy. The guy was ripped. Six-four maybe? Solid muscle everywhere. But it wasn’t pretty muscle. Like there were no packs, ridges, or deep V wedges like so many Hollywood actors had.
He was just a massive wall of humanity covered in chest hair.